


Lost in the Collage

by engagemythrusters



Series: Visions [4]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe, Developing Relationship, Friendship, M/M, Post-Episode: s02e08 A Day in the Death, Psychic Abilities, Telekinesis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:34:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27758491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/engagemythrusters/pseuds/engagemythrusters
Summary: "Ianto needed the coffee mugs washed so when the team came stumbling back in after not-much sleep, they would have something to pick themselves back up. Ianto had a feeling they would simply inject themselves with straight-up caffeine otherwise. Owen might have even allowed that at one point. Before he died, anyway. "Ianto knew a great many things. Owen also knew a good few things. What Ianto knew and what Owen knew weren't necessarily the same.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Series: Visions [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1915483
Comments: 10
Kudos: 92





	Lost in the Collage

_Charles Munson forgot to turn his alarm off this morning._

Ianto brushed the croissant crumbs into the black rubbish bag, making sure none fell to the floor below.

He didn’t know who Charles Munson was. Perhaps the baker that made the croissants this morning. Or the clerk at the bakery. Maybe the person who watched over the machines making the rubbish bag. It could also likely be some random soul walking over the Roald Dahl Plass.

 _Michael Simeon and Nancy Ekholm Burkert were the first illustrators for_ James and the Giant Peach _, for the United Kingdom and United States of America, respectively._

Ianto had never read _James and the Giant Peach_ , though he gathered many children had. Owen had. Gwen had. He knew this because he’d asked them what _James and the Giant Peach_ was once. He never asked Toshiko, though he suspected—

 _Toshiko Sato had never read_ James and the Giant Peach _._

Ianto sighed and moved on, throwing a large chunk of biscuit along with the croissant crumbs. When he reached Jack’s spot at the conference table, he took a moment to scowl to himself. Jack, for all his otherwise gentlemanly front, could be an absolute slob. The man constantly talked with his mouth full, which spewed and sprayed crumbs everywhere. Never very fun to clean up.

Sweeping more crumbs into the bag, he attempted to ignore the useless prattle in his brain. He did discover, though, that Charles Munson was indeed the baker. And that his alarm was currently annoying the hell out of his wife.

He left the conference room after depositing the rubbish bag into its respective bin, and he made his way back out to the main Hub. It seemed quiet, and he assumed everyone had gone home once they’d finished up their breakfast and coffees.

_After eight-thirty in the morning—_

“Ianto?”

Ianto glanced up.

“Where’s Jack?” Owen asked. He stood at the jutting overlook behind Tosh’s desk, frowning down at Ianto.

_Three bottles of whiskey, all in the trash, because Owen Harper couldn’t drink anymore._

“Not sure,” Ianto said.

Owen pulled an annoyed face, then turned on his heel and exited Ianto’s line of sight. He likely went down to the autopsy bay to… well, Ianto didn’t know what Owen was going to do.

_Seven Hoixes weighed the same as one Gorgamander._

Ianto could only assume Owen was dealing with either something Hoix- or Gorgamander-related. That, or he was overtired and more disjointed than usual.

If he was overtired, he couldn’t do much about it yet. He still had the whole Hub to clean before he went home. The rest of the team’s schedules may vary so much that they could take all-nighters and then leave for the day, but Ianto had a very strict regime that needed to be followed. Otherwise, the carefully organised Hub would fall out of order (because yes, it _was_ organised, no matter what Owen kept thinking), and a few of their permanent residents would starve. Ianto was not fond of the alien fish on the lower levels, but he didn’t exactly want to lose Janet or Myfanwy.

Actually, he needed to remember to grab more dark chocolate when he was out on his next supply run. His stash was running low. Myfanwy would not be pleased.

He started the morning’s tasks by washing up the coffee mugs. There was no telling when the next Rift alert would be—

_In the waters of Roath Dock._

Alright, so the next thing that came through the Rift would touch down in Roath Dock, but he still didn’t know—

_Twelve thirty-three in the afternoon._

Oh, that one was actually helpful. Helpful knowledge like that didn’t come along often.

Ianto set down Tosh’s mug to write that down on a slip of paper. A photographic memory was useful, but when it was constantly being bombarded with new information, things could slip through the cracks. Not everything made it into permanent storage.

But the point was… Ianto needed the coffee mugs washed so when the team came stumbling back in after not-much sleep, they would have something to pick themselves back up. Ianto had a feeling they would simply inject themselves with straight-up caffeine otherwise. Owen might have even allowed that at one point. Before he died, anyway.

Ianto always expected to wash five mugs. Five mugs for five people. But nowadays he washed four mugs. This time, as his hands automatically dove into the soapy water for the fifth, he looked up at the shelf of mugs, where Owen’s mug sat and stared back at him.

Ianto had adapted to quite a lot over the course of the past year and a half, but this was something entirely new.

The universe spat information about how fast Owen’s blood had dried on the pavement. Ianto swallowed the lump in his throat and began draining the sink of the soapy, filthy water.

Time to clean the Hub.

He started where he always did—sweeping up the area around his little corner. He then checked the contents of the fridge to make sure that all food was fine, all the drink was safe, and—most importantly—that Owen’s experiments (which he disguised in vaguely-labelled Tupperware to throw Ianto off his scent) were not growing mould. That had happened, once, and now Ianto was determined to never let it repeat again.

_Mould colonies could start to form on a damp surface within twenty-four to forty-eight hours._

Ianto knew that one, actually. Or he had, at one point. Forgotten, perhaps, or pushed aside. Though it also could have just been something he’d learnt. Either way, there it was once more; it would take some time to get rid of again.

Satisfied that Owen’s experiments had stayed mould-free and remained safely locked in their respective plastic containers, Ianto shut the fridge and moved on. He still had the rest of the lower part of the main Hub to clear up, and next the upper part. He then would move on to feed the Hub’s beastly habitants, and finish by making another pot of coffee, just for himself. If he didn’t have the time to nip home for a quick nap, he’d move onto filing. Then it would be starting the day again whenever Jack gave the word.

Where _was_ Jack, anyway? Ianto paused, thinking about it. Possibly standing on a roof somewhere? He shrugged, figuring that was as good an answer as any, then made his way to the small table filled with tech Tosh had set down to later sift through.

The table had once been a lot neater. Jack had kept some things on it, as had Suzie. Experiments, mostly, though a smattering of tech had lived there, too. And that hand. Jack’s Hand. Jack’s Hand that was actually the hand of—

— _the Doctor had been alive for over nine hundred years and had seventy-seven… days until Christmas… satsuma from the bathrobe of a man called… Howard Carter had discovered the tomb of… the High Priestess of Yvidia was the most visited burial grounds since the abandoned… child left in the train station… Gwen held the machine that produced those ghosts… actually creatures called the Gelth… had once passed by the planet Xero… had wine which tasted like… strawberry jam had a texture not dissimilar to... the skin of a Naxian slime slug… had seven eyes and three testicles and were as long as… the hand—_

“Ianto?”

Ianto rubbed two fingers against his temple briefly. Then he turned and glanced up at Owen, who again scowled at him from the overhang behind Tosh’s desk.

_Owen Harper hated satsumas._

Ianto’s left eyelid spasmed briefly.

“Thought that had stopped happening,” Owen said.

Ianto wasn’t sure the onslaught of information that came from… that particular individual… would ever stop giving him headaches. However, the overload was more manageable now that any physical trace of the person had been removed from his presence. So, he shrugged and said, “It’s tolerable.”

Owen squinted slightly at him, contemplating that. “Hm.”

“Is there something you wanted?” Ianto asked.

“I need another set of hands,” Owen said.

Ianto thought on it for a second. Well, Janet and Myfanwy could do with eating thirty minutes to an hour later than usual…

He made his way up to the upper section, and Owen turned to lead him down to the autopsy bay.

Owen had him hold open the collapsing chest of a decaying Hoix. Ianto spent the entire time trying not to breathe through his nose, plotting silently all of the ways he could kill Owen for good. He may have thrown in a few childish glares at Owen’s turned back once or twice, but nobody would ever know.

“Right,” Owen said after twenty-seven minutes. “You can go now.”

Ianto rolled his eyes, but removed his hands from the Hoix’s chest cavity, ripping off and properly disposing of the surgical gloves he wore. He would have to spend a good few minutes thoroughly washing off his hands before he went and fed Myfanwy, or else she’d peck him near to death trying to get after whatever smell that was.

Halfway up the stairs from the autopsy room, Ianto stopped as Owen called for him again.

“Ianto?”

Ianto mentally sighed a “what now?” to himself, then spun on his heel. He arched an eyebrow, staring patiently down at Owen.

“I was wondering…” Owen faltered.

Ianto frowned then, as the look on Owen’s face appeared more troubled and reflective than usual. “What is it?”

“Well.” Owen’s lips pulled as he thought some more. “I suppose I just wanted to know… what do you know about death?”

For a second, Ianto just stared at him, trying to process that.

“Not much more than I’ve heard from a few… witnesses,” Ianto settled on finally.

Owen blinked, then nodded, letting out a small “ah” as he glanced down at the Hoix corpse in front of him.

“Why?”

Scoffing, Owen looked back up. “Well, why do you think?”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Owen said. With an aborted sigh, he turned again and pushed the autopsy table down its track, preparing to send it down a level for incineration.

Ianto watched for a moment, then began back down the stairs. He stopped just at the bottom, still observing as Owen cleaned the space around them.

“Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to help?” Owen griped eventually, gesturing a scalpel at him.

“Why me?” Ianto asked, ignoring the pointed question and scalpel.

“What?” Owen asked. “What, you mean, why’d I ask you?”

Ianto nodded, and Owen shrugged.

“You know everything, don’t you?”

“I don’t,” Ianto said. If he did, he would still be locked away somewhere, siphoned for secrets of the universe until the day he died.

“Well, you know most things.”

Ianto didn’t try to argue that one. The amount of information he knew was just as good a guess as anyone’s, and they would be sat there for quite some time if they tried to argue just how much that was.

“Jack is far more experienced in terms of death than me,” he pointed out instead.

“Alright, I suppose, but you’re…” Owen shrugged. “You.”

Ianto was not sure how he was meant to take that.

“Seriously, though,” Owen went on. “Not even a glimpse? Nothing?”

“Not a thing,” Ianto said, enunciating each word.

Owen eyed him, then shook his head, ripping his gloves from his hands. “No, of course not. Because that would mean it would make sense, wouldn’t it? And fuck knows we can’t have things making _sense_ around here, oh no.”

Ianto watched him huff around the autopsy bay, frustratedly cleaning up. He stepped back to make way for Owen as he breezed by to put scanners away in their rightful place, but otherwise didn’t make any motion to help. Owen liked his area cleared the way Owen wanted it—Ianto had learned that long ago. And _not_ the easy, universe-granting way. 

“So,” he said after a while. “What’s it like then?”

Owen finished shoving the singularity scalpel into its proper drawer (Ianto didn’t even know why that had been out; they hadn’t used it), then stared at Ianto.

“Death?” he asked.

Ianto nodded.

He glanced way, eyes landing on the wall of notes. He studied it for some time, thinking to himself.

“Empty,” he said at last. “And also… not empty.”

Ianto could absolutely have made a remark about how much that truly clarified, but he kept his mouth shut and let Owen continue.

“You _feel_ empty,” he said. “Or maybe you feel nothing at all. I don’t know. I was dead. I wasn’t doing much thinking. But…”

He cut off again, setting his jaw and looking back to Ianto.

“There was something there, Ianto,” he said.

“In death?” Ianto asked, frowning.

“Something _moved_ ,” Owen said. “In the darkness. I could… I could _feel_ it. It watched me.”

Ianto thought on that for a second. He thought very hard, in fact, hoping the universe (or whatever the hell was out there, giving him this shit through the Rift) would grant him the ability to understand what Owen meant.

No such luck.

“Was it that thing?” Ianto asked. “Duroc?”

“Not a clue,” Owen said. “I hope so. I beat him once—I can do it again.”

Ianto didn’t ask if Owen planned on denying Death even in death. He wasn’t actually sure if that would work or not, and he was certain Owen didn’t know, either.

“You think you’re going to die again?”

“Well, it’s either that, or I walk the universe with Captain Flash.” The gibe sat for only a second before Owen sighed. “Can’t tell which is worse. Dying again, or eternal damnation.”

_Lady Me would be the last human in the universe._

Ianto didn’t know who that was, but that information laid many fears to rest in an instant. 

“But maybe I wasn’t really dead yet,” mused Owen, seemingly to himself, and Ianto snapped back to the present. “Maybe… I was brought back, wasn’t I? Maybe I wasn’t all the way dead yet… I still had to come back. I wasn’t done yet.”

“I’m not sure the universe works like that,” Ianto said.

“Well, it sure works in mysterious ways for you, doesn’t it?” Owen retorted. “Maybe this is how it works for me.”

That, Ianto could not argue, as he certainly did not know enough to even want to do so.

“Talk to Jack,” Ianto advised again.

“I have,” Owen said. “Flecks in the concrete, or whatever.”

_Owen Harper no longer had a gag reflex._

Ianto frowned, but he asked neither question that formed in the back of his mind.

“Look, I just wanted to know if you knew, alright?” Owen asked.

“I can’t help you,” Ianto said, sympathetic.

“Yeah, well, I know that now, don’t I?” He huffed out a long breath, then took a long look at Ianto. “Can you still read me?”

 _Unfortunately_ , Ianto thought to himself, remembering back a few moments with disgust. Aloud, he just said, “Yep.”

“But you can’t read Jack.”

“No.”

“So… it’s different, me and Jack, right?”

“If you’re asking if your eternal undead-ness is the opposite to Jack’s eternal alive-ness,” Ianto said, “then no, I don’t think so.”

“It’s not eternal,” Owen said.

A silence settled over them for a moment. Then Owen squinted at Ianto.

“Don’t suppose you _do_ know how long it takes to incinerate a Hoix, do you?”

_A Hoix took two hours, fourteen minutes, and seventeen point four seconds at 1000 degrees Celsius to burn._

“About two hours,” Ianto said.

Owen nodded. “Seems about right.”

And then their interaction ended as abruptly as it began. Ianto stood there for a few more seconds, shrugged to himself, and then left the autopsy bay.

Myfanwy and Janet both seemed rather irked at the late timing, but Ianto managed to feed both without getting bit or pecked. He even threw in a small hunk of chocolate from his dwindling stash for Myfanwy. This mollified her somewhat, as she squawked with less irritation than before as he backed out of her eyrie.

Jack returned to the Hub not long after Ianto started brewing his pot of coffee. Ianto could tell, because that unmistakable wash of nothingness shivered out through the air, blanketing some of the volley of information to a more tolerable degree. Ianto smiled to himself, and mentally reached out to the blue-striped mug on the shelf. It hovered for a second, then whizzed to his awaiting hand.

With bouncing footsteps not dissimilar to an eager child, Jack bounded down to the small kitchenette.

“Coffee?” he asked.

“Coming right up, sir,” Ianto said, pouring some into the mug.

Jack beamed at him as he passed the mug over, and Jack’s fingers brushed against his momentarily.

_..._

Ianto held in the wide grin he felt wanting to escape him.

That would never not be novel to him. The blissful release of sheer _nothingness_ Jack’s touch brought him… It used to shock him. Then it had thrilled him. While it could still elicit both shock and thrill, now… it just felt right. And, if he was honest, Ianto no longer knew whether that was because of the release from the torrent of universal knowledge, or if it was just because it was _Jack_.

Then Jack’s fingers pulled away from Ianto’s as he lifted the mug to his lips.

_Cassandra Pope was twelve minutes late for their aerobics class._

Ianto held in a resigned sigh, and instead smiled lightly as Jack made his usual pleased noise after his first sip of coffee.

“Where’ve you been?” Ianto asked.

“Out for a walk,” Jack said.

Up on a roof somewhere, that meant.

“Good walk?”

Jack’s shoulders raised in an ambivalent shrug as he took another drink. It cleared his head, then.

Ianto didn’t need the universe’s knowledge to know Jack.

“I think you should talk to Owen,” Ianto said.

An eyebrow arched high on Jack’s brow. “Oh? How come?”

“I… just think you both could use a talk.”

And, with a tone bordering sceptical and trusting, Jack said, “Okay.”

“Okay,” Ianto repeated.

Then he reached over to the shelf and grabbed his own mug, pouring himself some coffee.

“Oh, there’s going to be a drop at… Roath Dock at twelve thirty this afternoon,” Ianto said, suddenly reminded by the note that rested just to the side.

“Hm,” Jack said thoughtfully. “Well, with any luck, it floats. Not looking forward to dredging another dock.”

_Weevils could not swim._

Well, there went Ianto’s plans to take Janet swimming.

Jack reached out and took Ianto’s free hand gently, smiling softly at him. Ianto took in the touch, both for its soothing and reassuring qualities as well as its affectionate ones.

“Jack?”

Jack pulled his hand back again, whirling around as Owen came into view behind Tosh’s desk once more.

“There you are,” Owen grumped. “I’ve been looking for you all morning.”

_Owen Harper had to restitch his hand._

Owen made a beckoning gesture before he disappeared again, which Jack intended to follow. But not before he gave one last look to Ianto.

“Remind him to check his hand while you’re at it,” Ianto told him.

Jack smiled gently, then left.

Ianto took a sip of his coffee, savouring it before he set off towards the Archives to continue his day’s work.

_Eileen Whittaker had spilled coffee down her shirt._

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, life has been kicking me in the shins and I have had so many other things I've needed to write! Don't worry, I'm still going to finish this series! Two more fics after this!  
> Unedited. We don't edit in this house.  
> Thanks for reading! Have a gorgeous day!


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